Under contemporary merchandising and marketing techniques, it is usually essential that all items be individually packaged in some kind of carton. These cartons must be designed for strength and sturdiness in several respects. First of all the items within must be protected to some extent from the elements and dangers incurred during shipping and storage, such as dust, moisture, and the like. In addition, the items must be so packaged as to withstand bumps, scrapes and other accidental knocking around which occurs as a result of shipping and handling during the merchandising thereof. Any packaging should be so designed and constructed as to allow stacking of the cartons for more efficient use of warehouse and storage space. Even such items as lawn tractors are now marketed in individual cartons and should be placed in cartons of such strength and rigidity that four or five of the cartons may be stacked one atop the other without harm to the tractors within or without causing breakdown of the cartons.
Aside from the aspects of strength and sturdiness, the cartons must be easily movable either by lift trucks of the fork-lift type or of the squeeze type, as some merchandising centers will use fork trucks while others may use lift trucks that squeeze against the ends or sides of cartons to pick them up.
The cartons must be engineered and designed to achieve the considerations set forth hereinabove while at the same time they must be capable of being manufactured economically because in most cases such cartons are thrown away after one use. Frequently it is desirable to open the carton to add parts initially omitted. Finally manufacturing facilities want a packaging system which can be loaded and secured with a minimum of time and labor.